They Won't Like Me After Today
by 50ftQueenie
Summary: You're driving around skipping school with Steve Randal. Either improve him or put up with him.


SE Hinton owns Steve Randal. I don't write Steve much or the Socs ever, so this is sort of a departure for me. I wrote most of this while sitting in airports, so that's sort of a bad pun. Title comes from "He's A Rebel" by The Crystals.

**They Won't Like Me After Today**

One-

"Who is this asshole?"

Behind you, Steve Randall is mumbling under his breath. He shifts in his desk, and the thing creaks. He turns a page in his school copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, then another, and another, and faster and faster until you can feel the pages like a fan on your neck.

He sees you shrug your shoulder and takes it as an invitation to give you shit. He's drunk- a little, not a lot- but you could smell it on him when he glided past you to his assigned seat a minute and a half past the bell.

He wraps the end of your ponytail around his index finger. Rather than tug away- which he would enjoy far too much- you lean your head back slightly so that you can't feel the pull.

"What do you think, Raney? Is this guy an asshole or what?"

He always calls you by your last name. Randal, Raney- the two of you have been assigned to sit next to each other at everything since junior high. This time, the History teacher thought he was being clever and began the seating chart at the end of the alphabet. Whitaker, Williams, and Tucker are in the front row for the first time in their lives. For the first time, you are in front of Steve Randal instead of staring at the slick assembly of curls on the back of his head.

He asks you again, still holding your hair.

You quote from page 106: "Men exist for each other. Then either improve them or put up with them."

He lets you go and shoves back in his chair, offended.

Mr. Brennan, your long-suffering History teacher, doesn't look away from the blackboard. He doesn't need to.

"Mr. Randal," he says. "Is there a problem?"

"Raney here says she's barely putting up with me," Steve says. He leans forward again and says in a lower voice, "Or else she's saying that she lives _for_ me."

Fortified port: you hate to admit that you recognize the smell.

You whisper to Steve:"Maybe I'm saying that we could both stand with some improvement. Brennan seems to think reading this book will improve us,"

You turn your head slightly when you say it and make a face to make it clear to him that you can smell his Thunderbird breath.

"Brennan's a fag," Steve says. He meant to reply to you in a whisper as well, but the American Classic wins this round. Everyone- including Brennan- hears him say it.

Mr. Brennan is either a sadist or a patient saint. It's too early in the semester for you to know for sure. He doesn't toss Steve out right away. He doesn't throw his chalk or slam a book down on his desk. He turns around slowly and crosses his arms across his dress shirt and tie. He looks at Steve.

"And tell me, Mr. Randal, what does that mean?"

"Means you don't like chicks," Drunk-Steve answers. Sober-Steve might have claimed ignorance or insisted that Brennan misheard him. "It means you prefer the company of gentlemen."

Snickers and uncomfortable fidgeting around the classroom. You keep your eyes down, scanning but not actually reading page 106 over again.

"Then- if on the off-chance you are correct- you should have nothing to worry about," Mr. Brennan says to Steve. He's rattled, at least a little, or he wouldn't have ended a sentence with a preposition. For being the guy who teaches you about all the big wars, he isn't fond of conflict. "Gentlemen only in this classroom, Mr. Randal. Can you be a gentleman or do you need to go?"

The man is crazy, you think. Any other teacher would have ejected Steve into the hall by his shirt collar. Brennan isn't a small man. His picture is up on the Wall of Champions downstairs on the way to the gym. He played football at the old Tulsa High School in the thirties- back when they barely wore pads and helmets. He's softened up some, but he might still be able to take Steve.

"Ain't you supposed to either improve me or put up with me?" Steve asks.

Nice one, you think. You wouldn't have guessed his addled mind could've held that quote this long. He doesn't give Brennan a chance to answer. By now, Steve might be aware that the book is full of potential replies to that question, and that all of them would involve Brennan showing kindliness and mercy and Steve working hard at being a citizen of reason.

Steve isn't feeling reasonable. He's feeling the need for another pull from the bottle sitting on the floor beneath the front seat of his car.

"I think I need to go," Steve says, standing up.

He walks up the aisle past you, walking his fingers over your shoulder and across your desk, and then over the shoulders and across the desks of everyone else between him and Mr. Brennan. He chucks Meditations on Brennan's desk.

"Here's your book back," he says and turns towards the door. He winks at you. You flip him a quick bird around the shoulder of Arlette Nichols, where your hand is shielded from Brennan's view. Or so you think.

"Miss Raney," Mr. Brennan calls out. "Is that sort of behavior becoming of your station?"

Your face grows hot. You look down at your desk and then raise only your eyes to Mr. Brennan. In a flash, you feel your embarrassment give over to anger.

_Tell me what my station is_, you think. _Tell me what you think you know about me. If you're so smart, then be a History teacher and teach me. How did I get here- white trash stock with a mixed- Creek father and a mother who went from peasant to princess in the course of one black deluge_?

You don't know where they came from because they don't talk about it. How can Brennan possibly know?

He probably went to school with your parents- before the oil and the money. Your father's picture is on the Wall of Champions, too. He's a couple years younger than Brennan. His hair his black and his eyes are shy for the camera. As a young man, no one could mistake him for white. And yet, his father was and so he didn't get sent away to school. He grew up in Tulsa, played JV football as an underclassman when Mr. Brennan was a varsity senior. He married your mother and she got rich and your father couldn't handle it. He disappeared. Does Brennan know that much? Does he remember Irvin Raney? Or is he only seeing the most recent version of history- the one on your emergency contact form in the office where he gets the address to send progress reports home to your mother on the south side of town? Is that what he's referring to when he asks about your station?

Steve Randal slams the door. It jars you and Mr. Brennan both. He gestures with his hand that everyone go back to their reading. He pulls a booklet of detentions slips out of his desk draw and begins writing up Steve. You shut your book, waiting, giving Brennan one more chance to look up and give you an answer.

He doesn't look up though.

He says: "Yes, Miss Raney?"

"I'm through page 106," you tell him.

"So I am to understand. You've read number fifty-nine."

"I'm still thinking about fifty-eight," You say as you stand up. "I think I need to meditate on that one some more."

You walk to the front of the room and lay your book on Brennan's desk next to Steve's copy. You expect- even want, maybe- for Brennan to yell at you and demand you come back, but he just sighs and starts on a detention slip for you as you exit his classroom.

The air in the hall is cooler and easier to breath. You can still feel it on your skin and in your lungs, and so you know you're still alive.

* * *

Your intention is not to follow Steve Randal, catch up to him, and beg him to impart to you the ways of the greasers.

Maybe that's what he's thinking, however, when he sees you walking across the parking lot. Your car is parked three places over from his. You have to walk past him to get to it, which you try to do without making eye contact.

From your peripheral vision you see him raise his fifth of Thunderbird.

"Miss me?" He calls.

"No, I'm Miss _Raney_, remember?"

You can feel him grinning at that. He calls you a smart ass and turns to lean against the side of his car to watch you walk to yours.

"You got an appointment or something, Raney?"

"No."

"Where you going then?"

"I'm leaving."

"Just like that? Just like _me_? Shit, I never would've seen that coming. I guess I'm some kind of trend-setter."

You keep right on ignoring him. You could argue and ask him does he think you never would've had the thought or the stones to walk out of a class if he hadn't done it first, but the truth is you wouldn't have. He did, indeed, start something. But he doesn't have to know that.

You unlock the door to your car and look up at him.

"Yes, I have an appointment. I have a date with fucking destiny, and I'm late."

"You have a boyfriend? I didn't know that."

You're dumb enough to pause and then even dumber to ask him, "What?"

"You have a date with Fucking Destiny. You said it. I'm just assuming it's a hot date then."

You roll your eyes and unlock your car door.

"You know what I mean. Just…"

"No, I don't think I do. I'm not that kind of boy. I'm an innocent."

Before you can scoff at that, he changes gears: "That's a sweet Chevy you got there."

"It gets me where I need to go."

"To your hot dates, you mean? Seriously, That ain't no little girl's car. That's a nice ride. It got the V8? How come you ain't got something newer?"

"Like I said, it gets me where I need to go. I don't need something newer."

"That's a very refreshing attitude coming from someone the likes of yourself." He's walking over to you now, slowly because he's a little tipsy now and he doesn't want you to see it and get spooked.

"Meaning?" You know what he means, but you want to hear him say it. You want to hear the sneer in his tone, the touch of meanness, so that you can tell him to fuck off.

"Meaning didn't you just have a birthday? I know you did. They read it in homeroom last week, right? Happy Sweet Seventeen, Little Miss Vivian Raney. Your daddy didn't buy you no new car? Or is that what you're getting for graduation?"

He knows. You can see it in the way he's now leaning against your fender and grinning down at the fifth in his hand. He knows you haven't seen your daddy in fourteen years.

You yank your door open.

"I'm late," you tell him. "I need you to move."

"Apologies," Steve says. "Can't have you being late now…for your hot date…or appointment…or whatever bullshit…It's bullshit, ain't it, Raney? You ain't got nowhere to be, you're just trying to get away from Brennan, same as me."

"I'm trying to get away from you. Excuse me."

You slam the door shut and fumble to get the key in the ignition. You turn it finally, and the engine springs to life and the radio along with it. You cringe at the loud blast of Brill Cream pop that you know Steve Randal must be able to hear and must find terribly trite and funny.

You turn the radio off and you can hear him singing the next few bars: "…if they don't like him that way…they won't like me after today…" as he walks back to his car. You back out of your parking space and curse because you still have to drive past him one more time to get out of the parking lot. You have your finger ready as you go by, but he's beat you to the punch this time. He flips you off but then raises his bottle in his other hand- a toast your journey to nowhere.


End file.
